Photos of Naked Children: Works of art or exploitation?

At the Photographers' Gallery in London, an exhibition of Sally Mann's photographs of her children is stirring controversy, and not for the first time. Taken over a ten year period, many of the photographs are of her children naked, or posed in ways to suggest they are older. Her intent was to remind her audience of how exploited children are, and how they have been sexualized. Though the reason for her work is honourable, it raises questions about what is child pornography and what isn't.

These are difficult topics to talk about. I wish it weren't so, but as a social worker who has worked with many abused children, I can say with certainty that the age of our innocence is past. What has changed is us. There is a notion today of art as co-constructed. What has been termed the 'post-modern turn' means that the audience participates in art. We are no longer passive consumers. By watching, we interpret and say what something means.

Unfortunately, that means a picture of a naked little girl or boy cannot be divorced from stories in the news of paedophiles who kidnap children and keep them in underground bunkers. Nor can we avoid the sad truth that those pieces of art will be exploited by an internet culture that will land them in the hands of people who will look at them in ways we don't want them to be looked at.

The innocent pictures we used to take of our children in the bathtub or dancing naked through the backyard sprinkler can no longer be developed at the local mall.

It saddens me when I see how corrupted our view of children's bodies has become. A few years ago, my niece was three and walking naked on the beach (with her parents and I at her side) when a cottager on the bluff above screamed down to us to "put clothes on that child." It made me wonder what kind of person sees a naked little kid in a way that could offend. And yet, that cottager is likely in the majority these days.

I hate to admit it, but I'm finding myself beginning to think it is no longer worth the risk to allow our children to be naked in public. At least not now. Maybe we have to remove these images from public display for a time. Maybe the paedophiles have won. Maybe we have lost our innocence, burdened with stories of the clergy, sex tourism that seeks child prostitutes, and the proliferation of child pornography on the web. I wish it weren't so, but I know I would feel strange taking a photo of my own children that is even remotely suggestive of their sexuality.

That's sad, isn't it? The other night my 14-year-old daughter had a sleep over with two of her friends. They slept outside under a starlit summer's sky. In the morning it was sweet to see them curled up together, under blankets, their heads poking out, their pyjama legs tossed carelessly in all directions. My wife suggested we take a picture. Though I'm usually the photographer in the family, I told her I thought she should take the picture, not me. She looked at me for a moment, wondering why.

"I'm not sure it feels right," I told her. "What will the girls say when they go home? 'Mr. Ungar was taking photos of us sleeping. In our pyjamas!'"

My wife took the picture. We won't be posting it on any website, Facebook page, or emailing it. We won't print it at the local box store either. We'll just look at it on our computer, as my daughter did, and smile. We'll shut out the noise around us, pretend it is all innocent, when we know that lurking beyond our backyard is a world that would look at that picture very differently.

For a look at how assumptions have changed over the years, re-watch the 1942 comedy The Major and the Minor. Today, no one – even in a movie – would get out of trouble with his fiancé by explaining that the girl she saw in his cabin was 12.

Sadly children and art are becoming divorced. It is not the problem of the child but rather the overbearing goody who generally has a one eyed view on religion and anything remotely connected to the human body.
I have taught art to children and I have learnt from children what child art is now and always has been. A single mark of the pencil can explain sexuality to the 5 to 10 year old at least and there is not a single thought of sexual activity connected to the production.
My children posed for paintings even as teenagers and run around in the rain stark naked.There was no notion of sex but and overwhelming freedom and relief to cool off in the rain.
We were never commited naturists but enjoyed the serenity of an isolated beach when it happened and it did without seeking.
My family was destroyed by the religious zealots in my family and those being the ones who claimed to be born again. The poison went in after one was sacked for stealing within the family.
In the previous 20 years it has been very easy to destroy the credibility of a man who has painted naked children(no genitalia)and photographed his own creation born in the image of God.One can only wonder.
To sum it up;
Some day adult people will grow up and realize that the only thing vile about human bodies is the small minds some people have developed within them.

If one goes back and looks at the nudist photos and movies from the 1980s and before, back to the 50s at least, children were a major part of activities and lots of children could be seen at most clubs and in the pictures of the nudist press of the time. Now people are afraid of being persecuted for not believing in exploitable nudity only is permitted and that any nudity of children is a crime. Exposure to nudity has become a tool to use against the other parent in child custody disputes in some cases of divorce. Family bathtub pictures can cost a parent a lot if it is seen by somebody who isn't a nudist. This cultural shift towards shame, hate and fear of the unclothed body seems to me rather non sane.

Human behavior changes over time as such this conversation in the future might be pointless for though in our time its relevant next generation might not but if we continue to wonder about child nudity there is nothing wrong with it but there are thinkers and followers vanguards and support I do not believe this is a way we should embrace but we are all born nude children have been topics of discussion for centuries in Sparta they were trained for combat if male the real problem isn't child nudity its the belief that it is impure or improper.